u/Cannagirl1366

So I grew up in small South African town with 3 different Pentecostal churches under the same main denomination name but 3 vastly different ideologies. My parents bounced around them a few times and they were used and abused by these fuckers. They did so much free labor in building and fixing things for the church. My dad being the sound guy, the one who would fix the big things and on the elder council, my mum was a worship leader and leader of the elders ministry. I was their perfect trophy child and I had to be perfect. The churches were and still probably are extremely white supremacist with a white savior complex, extremely homophobic and there were strict cult like hierarchies. As far as some of the other craziness went, it focused heavily on miracle healing, prophecies, end time fear mongering, appearance control and called everything including other church denominations satanic, they took the satanic panic of the 90’s and turned it into everything that didn’t fit into their white nationalist calvinistic framework satanic, if you were amab then corporal punishment was always a threat especially from pastors and deacons and if you were attractive in anyway the aunties would harass and touch you in ways that still makes my skin crawl, afab folks had to deal with the creepy uncs who for some reason always had oily hands. As an intersex trans person, I grew up hating myself and the only way I got through the multiple church services a week and the morning an evening Sunday services was to fall asleep or be wired af on white stuff to stay awake to avoid the beatings later. My parents were extremely devoted and bought into it all so fully that they completely lost all identity and personality. The church was everything and I had to obey perfectly in order to avoid the harsh punishments bc spare the rod or some bullshit. Today I cannot stand Christianity in general, it’s too painful. I believe in the 3 constants that will be here when I die and it’s the Sun, Earth and Moon that provide the conditions for us to live and thrive but everyday the thoughts of the end times and what if I am wrong still gnaw at the back of head. I don’t know how to overcome those. Candi Carpenter’s music has helped especially the song American God bc of how much American evangelicals has influenced the cult church I was mostly raised in. I only recently started unpacking this and dealing with it in therapy. I feel completely alone bc of the religious psychosis that I used to live in and the fear of going back into that but all my ex in laws pressuring me to just follow god again and my problems would go away but it just isolates me further since I lost my entire blood family. Anyone know what I can do to just move on and heal from it all?